Sun God Seeks…Surrogate? (Accidentally Yours #3)(58)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

My heart thumped like a bongo. “Please don’t, Kinich. Please don’t do this,” I whispered.

“I am sorry,” he said, his voice filled with only a hint of remorse. “I vote yes.”

“Well, I don’t!” I barked. “I’m not going to help you officially declare my life a sin, or mistake, or act against nature…or whatever! My answer is no!”

Bees stood from her throne. Her angry swarm began circling above the table. “That is ridiculous, you do not get a vote.”

“Why not?” Zac argued. “She houses the power of the sun, and it is our law that whoever holds this gift will be our leader. Only a unanimous vote from all fourteen can change this, and we will never have one because Chaam is locked away.”

Bees huffed, which caused her tiny black-and-yellow soldiers to kamikaze Zac. “Semantics! She is not the Sun God,” she blasted.

Zac didn’t flinch. “Put them away, Colel,” he growled.

She plunked her fist on her hip. “Or what? You have no powers.”

“I am a Bacab,” he warned. “I may not have gifts, but I am still physically stronger than you, which means I can tear your head clean off without breaking a sweat.”

The bees crawled on Zac’s arms and face, stinging him and falling to the floor, but he simply stared Colel down, not acknowledging their presence.

“Enough!” I commanded. “Put them away, or I’ll turn them into bee fritters.”

I hated that idea. Her bees were really cute. Kind of like tiny yellow assassins with a sweet tooth.

She rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers. The bees promptly flew back inside the hive on her head.

“Thank you, Bees—I mean, Colel.” I closed my eyes for a moment to enjoy a calming breath. “Right. Where were we?”

Zac straightened his shoulders and looked at each of the gods. “I was attempting to say that Penelope has publically demonstrated her command of the sun’s power. Until she is separated from this power, she is the Goddess of the Sun. It’s no different if we decide to do another rotation of duties”—he pointed to Suicide who was about to speak—“But we will not!” He turned back to Bees. “My point is, if we do, then whoever houses the particular gift inherits the title.”

“I wanna be Fate next time,” Belch slurred, and scratched his protruding belly that had escaped from the bottom of his green nylon jacket. “I’m tired of being the life of the party. People respect Fate; they just get knocked up or vomit when I’m around.”

Bees sat down and crossed her arms like the cantankerous deity that she was. “Fine. But we all know this issue isn’t going away. Kinich will be restored to his usual arrogant self by the next summit, and we will vote again. The topic will be addressed.”

Guy leaned back in his chair with a smug smile across his face. “Not if you want to win the Great War, which you will not without me.”

Belch leaned forward and pointed at Guy. “Or, can I be him? I’m tough and strooong.” He flexed his biceps and squeezed the flabby-looking muscle.

“Shut it, Belch,” said Fate, brushing back her blond locks. She turned to me, “Let’s move on. Penelope is our stand-in Sun God, and she has spoken.”

Kinich growled, “Looks as though Cimil’s plan was successful, Penelope.”

“Huh?”

“All along we assumed she wanted you to be the surrogate mother of my child, when in fact, she was plotting for this. You, the surrogate Sun God. My proxy. A Payal who just successfully turned the tides away from a vote on this matter.”

I gasped internally. Could that be? This entire situation had been orchestrated by Cimil? Holy demon bun cakes. These people played a pretty mean game of chess. And, Christ, I’d followed along with Cimil’s plot like a mindless, naïve little lamb playing hopscotch with a pack of wolves. With superpowers. And weird tastes in gifts.

But regardless of all that, I couldn’t help but feel wounded by Kinich’s views on Payals. He was wrong. Flat-out wrong. Somehow, I’d prove it to him.

“Kinich, I’m sorry. But, regardless of Cimil’s hand in all this—I did what I thought was right. Just like you—”

“I have another topic.”

“Kinich, I—”

He interrupted, “I wish to vote for your immortality.”

Trying not to sound whiny, I said, “Oh for Pete’s sake! Would you make up your mind? Payals are evil. Now you want to make me immortal. You don’t love me, but you don’t want anyone else to look at me. Pick a story and stick to it! ”

The gods stared with interest.

“Oh. I love a good fight. Do share what our brother is saying, Penelope,” Suicide requested cheerfully.

“Penelope, raise the topic. We will resolve our differences later. Here is not the place.”

“I don’t want immortality. In fact, when this is over, I don’t want anything to do with you.”

“Penelope, I—”

I moved to close the nominations for agenda items.

“Stubborn woman, this is not over.”

Like he’d instructed, I recorded the topics on the stone—a weird caveman-like iPad of sorts that turned black wherever I touched it with the silver stylus.

I then called for the discussion of the first topic.

Guy rose from his seat and cleared his throat. “I seek the counsel and wisdom of my brethren regarding my most recent discovery. It seems that the absence of Chaam has not impeded the Maaskab’s advancement in the area of manipulating dark energy. They have evolved from astute apprentices to masters.”

I noticed his hands, which were firmly planted on the table. I imagined he could crack a man’s skull with hands that big.

“Upon returning to our realm,” he continued, “I sought to understand why the Uchben were able to detect the Maaskab’s presence on the satellite. I found no evidence of them in the physical world, but I witnessed several dozen Maaskab sifting in and out of their phantom encampment. My belief is that they’ve somehow learned to occupy another dimension, the dimension used by the vampires to sift.”

The gods made a collective gasp.

“What leads you to believe this?” Zac’s voice rang out among the rumblings of the others.

“I watched as they stepped through the temporary portals they created. The color of their energy signatures shifted frequency as they did this.”